Wednesday

My name is Travis Brunson and I live in Fort Myers, Florida. I moved here from Edina with my wife and our two girls in 2001. Fort Myers is a pretty good place to be a Twins/baseball fan.

I moved here not for baseball reasons, but for business ones. Since the move, however, I have become relatively obsessed with the Twins in particular and baseball in general; much to the chagrin of my wife. She used to think me slightly eccentric when it came to this stuff. I am quite certain that now she thinks I am a wacko. Now that it's November, she also doesn't know what to do with me in the evenings since I no longer have set plans 5-6 nights a week. A cursory review of some other baseball writers, professional and otherwise, shows that this is a common dilemma.

But I digress. And it's so early in the story. Typical.

Since I think all baseball fans have a million good reasons why they are baseball fans and why the game means so much to them, I thought I'd focus on what it was that caused me to embrace the game so strongly again in recent years now that I am a grownup (sorta).

Like a lot of baseball fans, I played various backyard versions of the game as a kid, anywhere and as much as I could. When school moved along, I joined the junior high and high school teams. Again, like a lot of fans, I was barely good enough to play on a bad team in a small town in Southern Minnesota in the mid and late 80's. I went to a couple of Twins games in the old Met that I can barely remember. I watched and rooted for the Twins in high school in 1987 and again in college in 1991, but I was only a casual fan. I wanted them to win. I enjoyed it when they did win. But I didn't really CARE day in and day out.

And then throughout the entire 90's I pretty much left the game entirely. I watched some. I sort of paid attention. But I probably watched 5 games a year on TV, went to maybe one in the dome every other season.

It was football and the Vikes that I cared about.

Every Minnesota sports fan knows what happened in mid-January 1999. I was at that game. A business associate of my father's hooked us up with tickets on the 45-yard line, 15 or so rows up, and was all set to hook us up with tickets in Miami as well. In the aftermath, I was near physically ill for three weeks after that game. I didn't know it at the time, although now looking back I am pretty certain that that game was a turning point for me.

In five short years, I would live and breathe baseball ... and it would be football that I would barely watch, let alone care about.

It started in the spring of 2001, right before we moved to Florida. The Twins had a great start that year. I don't remember how great, but I remember now that they were winning and that they seemed to have a bunch of likable young guys on the team. TK was still there and he was at least a remaining successful link to the past. It was probably nostalgia because we were moving, but I started watching several games a week. I watched more games in one week in the late spring of 2001 than I'd watched in the previous five years.

I honestly don't even remember why I started watching. I even convinced the wife to watch some with me and we managed to go to a couple of games. It was good stuff while it lasted, but then we left town.

The general chaos of a cross-country move, combined with a (then) lame MLB TV package and the Twins falling out of contention, soon made me forget all about the Twins for the time being. Then 9/11 happened and anyone who cares at all about baseball couldn't help but watch that November series. Hate the Yankees and Gee-Dubya all you want, but that "first pitch" strike he threw in Yankee Stadium remains, without question, in my view, the high-water mark of the man's presidency. Let alone that it was probably the best first pitch ever thrown; that I can recall anyway. Throw in those exciting finishes, and a 7-game final result that any Yankee hater could smile about, 9/11 or not. It was good stuff.

I could barely wait for spring training in our first full year in Florida.

During a couple of previous spring vacations, the missus and I managed to hit a couple of March games in Fort Myers. I probably take them for granted a little bit now, but coming from Minnesota after four months of winter, there is little better than sitting in the 80 degree sun, drinking some Budweiser(s) & watching a mix of stars and AAA guys play some baseball for an afternoon. Tickets used to be cheap, something like $8 for the best seats. They're more than double this now, but such is life. I specifically remember seeing Cal Ripken in the Spring of 1999; the crowd went nuts like they always do for Cal, and he signed autographs for fans for nearly an hour. I can't even remember if he played in the game, probably not; that warm sun and a couple of beers will tend to make one care less about the specifics.

Every baseball fan, especially those living in the North, owes it to themselves and the family to go to a Spring Training baseball game.

I went to a fair handful of games in the spring of 2002. But once the season would start, I'd pay attention from afar. I watched the 2002 postseason, was pleasantly surprised at the Twins making the ALCS; and then was semi-bummed as I watched the Angels suck the life force out of the Twins.

Similar story in '03. A bunch of spring training games; a regular season viewed from the way outside; another postseason watching a
different opponent (The Yankees this time) again suck the life out of the Twins. And then, through some luck (or fate), of all things, the
Florida Marlins, after a disastrous start and a mid-May coaching change, managed to make the NL wildcard and defeat the reigning NL champs, the Giants.

Correctly figuring that seeing an NLCS game would rarely be so cheap (I think the ticket was only around $35) or easy (2 hour drive) again, a buddy and I managed to see Game 5 between the Cubs and the Marlins. Down 3 games to 1, things were looking pretty grim for the hometown team. But the Fish, who play in the slightly cavernous Dolphins (then ProPlayer) Stadium, had two major things going for them. First, they were lucky enough to be playing the Cubs. And for anyone who's been paying attention to either the Cubs or that series, playing the Cubs was almost enough. But the other major thing was that they had this young hillbilly-looking guy on the mound that day.

And the hillbilly was hot. And at the end of the 2003 season, the hillbilly was "throwing aspirin tablets," as they say. And I got to see the hillbilly (or, as everyone knows, Josh Beckett) throw nine innings of shutout baseball and send the series back to Chicago. Where, as we all know, the Cubs acted like the Cubs. Which, again luck and the fates would have it, conspired to send me to my first ever World Series games.

I managed to see games 3 and 5. The Marlins went on to win game 5 to go up 3-2, and then the hillbilly sealed the deal back at Yankee stadium on three days rest for game 6. In one of the great all time managerial moves, the septuagenarian skipper Jack McKeon lit a big stogie at the postgame press conference. One of the first things out of his mouth, after taking a big puff, was whether any of the geniuses in the media crowd now had any questions about his decision to start the kid on three days rest. Classic.

Well, in 2004 I lost my baseball mind. I went to even more spring training games. Soaked in more March baseball sun; with the fortunate side effect of drinking more Budweiser & avoiding productive things, like work. That spring we started hosting friends from Minnesota for a couple of long weekends and we'd go to the games (amongst other Florida fun). There were again high hopes for the Twins who had, again, brought back most of their core guys for another run.

And in May of 2004, I went and did something that my wife now must certainly regret. I saw Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" at the bookstore. I bought it. I brought it home. And I finished it in about two days. My life has not been the same since.

Leaving aside the giant leaps, broad conclusions, and other liberties that Mr. Lewis takes in the book (that are apparent now, they weren't so much so then), it is a pretty good book. Lewis writes in a very readable fashion. He makes some convincing arguments. And the subtle humor is top-drawer. Ever since I read his "Liar's Poker" in the early 90's and shook the bed from laughing at 2 in the morning, I've been a fan of Lewis.

What was so great about "Moneyball" for me was not so much its point about the Oakland A's, Billy Beane, or on-base percentage, but that there was entire other world of knowledge and arguments to be had about baseball. I guess I had always somewhat subscribed to the idea that what these guys did on the field was akin to voo-doo, or something that mortals could not figure out, let alone accomplish (although this is, I think, still true). I had no idea that there was this vast a universe of baseball fans, whether called stat-geeks, sabermetricians, or whatever, and that individual parts of the game of baseball could be so easily broken down and analyzed in an attempt to figure out each individual's contribution to the end result. I knew that baseball kept a lot of stats, but I never knew that they could tell a story in and of themselves. Or how they'd explain with hard proof and facts, over time, certain things about ballplayers that your own eyes would fail to discern. Or how important seemingly minor differences between the stats could mean to a team trying to win ballgames.

I discovered Bill James because of "Moneyball." And this alone made it worthwhile reading, regardless of whether or not one agreed with its premise. I discovered all these good statistical websites and blogging sites because of this further inquiry. I now watched tons of baseball games, live and on TV, now with an eye towards picking apart all these small pieces. I'd come to realize watching and reading all this stuff how superficial and thin the mainstream media's coverage of this great game is. I realize that by knowing more, I come to understand how little I do know.

So while all these reasons attempt to answer the query "why baseball?" for me, there also remains the simple fact that baseball is at its core a great game. Even if someone could care less about statistics, or even has a team to root for, baseball is great because a baseball field is a beautiful place (well most of them anyway) to spend a few hours. It is a great game because almost everyone can enjoy sitting outside in the sun (for those of us lucky enough to do so from time to time) watching regular guys do amazing things. It is great game for stat geeks because the myriad ways of analyzing the game and its players can lead to an infinite amount of great arguments (like this unanswerable gem, for example; is Torii Hunter is a great ballplayer or just a pretty good one? If so, how great? Is he overpaid? And by how much? And this is but one slice of one tiny argument about one player at one place in time on one team.)

It's great because in no other sporting event is the phrase "Nothing is Over" (see Bluto from "Animal House") more true than baseball. If your football team is down by three touchdowns, a minute left, no timeouts and the other team has the ball on first down ... head for the car. But if your home team in baseball down by three runs, bottom of the ninth, two outs, 0-2 count, nobody on ... hey, anything is possible. There may be one more pitch in the game, or one hundred.

It is great because anytime during an entire spring and summer, for $5 a head, I can take my family to a nice ballpark for a minor-league game and the occasional fireworks show. And while there, we get to watch some pretty good baseball. I get to watch some Twins of the future; the boss and I get to watch our future run around in the bleachers and eat cotton candy with their friends. And the missus and I get to hang out; and of course, enjoy a couple of Budweisers.

And I can't think of too many things that can top that.

Why baseball?

Heck, that's easy. I want to know why Florida doesn't have a fall league.

But for now, I'm guessing plus or minus 100 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Go Twins.